Dick Morris: Bergdahl's Release Is 'Political Disaster for Obama'

The decision by President Barack Obama to arrange for the release of Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, who was being held prisoner in Afghanistan, in exchange for five Taliban detainees from Guantanamo Bay "is a political disaster for Obama," says political analyst Dick Morris.

"This is a political disaster for Obama, and it's only just beginning," Morris told J.D. Hayworth and John Bachman on "America's Forum" on Newsmax TV.

This will become more clear "when this guy gets home and he starts spewing out this propaganda and we get to see up front that we have an Edward Snowden in our hands, not a prisoner of war," Morris said Tuesday.

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The former adviser to President Bill Clinton said it looks like "the main reason that [Bergdahl] was released or that they swapped was because Obama felt that he couldn't pull out of Afghanistan and still have him in custody."

Morris says he doesn't buy Obama's argument that the United States needed to bring him home because "we never leave soldiers behind."

"He wasn't captured on the battlefield, he wasn't left behind, he walked out of the compound and went around asking for someone who speaks English so that he could negotiate with the Taliban or give information to the Taliban," Morris explained.

"He was much closer to a deserter or even a turncoat and a spy than he was a prisoner of war — it's like calling Benedict Arnold a prisoner of war," he added.

According to the accounts of Bergdahl's fellow soldiers, he walked away from his platoon in the middle of the night when he was captured by the Taliban in 2009, leading some to call Bergdahl a deserter.